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Gra Valkas Empire
Gra Valkas Empire (グラ･バルカス帝国, Gura Barukasu Teikoku) also known as the Eighth Empire, is a powerful transferred country from the planet of Yugudo. A nation that suddenly appeared on the far west of Mu. They invaded the surrounding nations with overwhelming might and declared world domination. They are the third hostile nation to Japan after Louria Kingdom and Parpaldia Empire. They are currently at war with all nations in the current world. History Prior to the transference, Gra Valkas was once one of the two strongest countries in their homeworld of Yugudo with only one rival country, the Kingdom of Kain. Before being transferred to the New World, there was a global war between them and the Kingdom of Kain and they were gradually winning thanks to abundant resources, overwhelming production capabilities, the most advanced technology, and superior military strength. However, because of the sudden world transfer phenomenon, their mainland found itself in this world. Although they lost huge swaths of land because they had recalled most of their forces in order to prepare to invade their enemies prior to the transfer, aside from any forces that were stationed on overseas military bases, the empire still retained the vast majority of their military. In addition, their rival, the Divine Kingdom of Kain, had disappeared. After arriving on this strange planet, the empire fell into chaos for a short time, but, when they explored east, they found plenty of lands populated only by natives with laughably poor equipment. In light of their unbeatable superiority, everyone in the empire was overcome with delight. At first, the neighboring countries were all aggressive towards them, but they were far too weak and quickly fell under imperial control. But then, while dealing with all these minor countries, they discovered that this world had so-called “civilized areas” where stronger countries cooperated with one another. Since they had no idea how powerful these countries were in this completely unknown world, everyone advocated a careful approach where they tried to peacefully form international relationships. Basically, diplomacy was preferable to blindly stabbing in the dark. However, they went to the country after country, and, despite being so-called “civilized countries,” they were much weaker than was rumored, yet they still looked down on anyone outside the civilized areas. The empire’s efforts at diplomacy simply never moved forward. When one of the imperial royalty was in one of these small countries as a peaceful diplomat, he was mocked with “You barbarians don’t understand this world at all.” He lost his patience and angrily objected. They responded by killing him. After this incident, no one in the empire advocated for peaceful interactions in this world any longer. Just like in their old world, they would rule with force and aggressively expand their territory. However, this new outlook on foreign relations may lead to their downfall after arrogantly declaring war on the entire New World due to the apperance of Japan. Chronology Pre New World War After their arrival to the new world, the Gra Valkas Empire dispatch every spy to every nation, intending to gain as much intelligence as they can to determine their next movements. After a member of the royal family was killed, they immediately move to subjugate all Kingdoms in their vicinity. After Japan succeed in defeating the Louria Kingdom in the Eastern Hemisphere. In the Western Hemisphere, Gra Valkas Empire launches an invasion and conquered the Paganda Kingdom with a single warship, Grade Atlaster. Enraged, the Reifol Kingdom dispatches all of its fleets to retaliate but all of their fleets are decimated once again by Grade Atlaster. Additionally, the Captain of the ship immediately sets the course to Reifol Capital and with a single punitive strike, they manage to kill the King and forcing the Kingdom to surrender. New World War Arc Technology Most of the Gra-Valkas technologies are shown on the military side, so the full capabilities of their technologies are still unknown. However, it can be clearly seen that it reaches the WW2 technology level. They already have significant knowledge of aviation technology, as evidenced by the Antares fighters and many other aircraft that perform much better than the indigenous countries in the New World. However, they are not capable of creating helicopters, missiles or jet fighters. It is revealed that Gra Valkas did try to create jet fighters in the past, but eventually abandoned the project because of the high cost of the research and development. They have the technology to produce radar, depth charges, torpedoes, radios and proximity fuses, but are completely ignorant of computers, GPS, guided missiles, night vision, nuclear physics along with the concept of chemical and biological warfare. Their ships do possess sonar, but they must slow to a speed of 5 knots in order to use it, and it has a very limited range. This type of underwater detection is virtually useless against modern day sound-suppression technology. In addition, the concept of assault rifles is non-existent in their infantry, with their standard infantry weapons is bolt-action rifle, although it is suggested that automatic weapons, such as machine guns and SMGs, may exist in their infantry, it is assumed that Gra Valkas Empire may lack Magazine Feed technology on a smaller scale. The infantry also lacks any kind of body armor or personal protection. During the negotiation between Asada Taiji and Gra Valkas diplomat, it is revealed that Gra Valkas doesn't possess nuclear weapons as the Gra Valkas officials were unfamiliar with the term. It is also implied that Gra Valkas may lack chemical sciences as they may also not developing neither radioactive materials or biological weapons Like most civilized countries in the New World, Gra-Valkas possesses relatively advanced communication technologies, such as radio or television, when they can shrink those devices and equip them on planes and vehicles. Even so, they have no idea about jamming technologies (electronic warfare), which confused them when Japan jamming their radio during the battle, leaving the forces in turmoil. When Prince Gra Cabal was brought to Japan, he was surprised to see that Japan was able to build high-speed railway and skyscrapers, things that are still considered almost impossible to achieve in Gra-Valkas. Gra Cabal mentioned that the Empire use tram as primary public transportation. Subway trains are still on the development stage while high-speed trains, such as the commuter line or Shinkansen cannot be made due to problems that commonly occurred on the Empire, which is speed and vibration where the engineers were never able to solve the problem. During the visit to Mu to negotiate the release of Prince Gra Cabal, it was noted that Mu's automobile technology was estimated to be 50 years behind Gra-Valkas'. While it is clear that Gra-Valkas has technological capacity and resources, the paradox is that they lack the ability to develop their technology to a higher level. One of the reasons for that is the lack of funding (as in the case of jet engines and rotary-wing aircraft), but mostly because of their superpower status in their old world as well as the New World: only having to deal with lower-level opponents results in Gra-Valkas having less need to develop technology to compete with rivals; instead, they focused on mass-producing existing technologies in large numbers, taking advantage of superior technology and tactics to overwhelm their rivals. As a result, their current technological development process is very slow, almost standing still. Unfortunately, that nature inadvertently put the Gra-Valkas Empire in danger. The slow development of technology means that they lack awareness or misperception about the prospects of advanced technologies, resulting in them often judging their opponents through their own common knowledge of technology, rather than hypothesizing that competitors may have more unknown advanced technologies or unknown means to dispatch them. The most typical example is Japan: they think that the Coast Guard's ships are warships, which are only armed for law enforcement, leads them to seriously underestimate Japan. Furthermore, despite being shown the superior technology of Japan through the video about WW2 by Japan diplomats, as well as obtained documents on Japanese weapons at Mu, the Gra Valkas smears at Japan as they think they're bluffing to them and regards their advanced technology as pure propaganda. Due to their status as a superpower in their old world, and the lesser level of technology in the New World, the Gra-Valkas has taken on an attitude of superiority. In their minds, they are the highest levels that technology can achieve. If they cannot achieve higher levels, then it simply cannot be done. For example, when discussing the possibility of the AEGIS system, the head of the Information Technology Department dismisses it as pure propaganda. Using their own vacuum tube technology as a reference, it would mean that computing devices needed to achieve the levels stated in the Japanese books they acquired would have to fill entire rooms or floors of buildings. The Gra-Valkas cannot even fathom the idea of shrinking a vacuum tube to the size of coin. As they are ignorant of alternatives to the vacuum tube, such as the transistor, they cannot comprehend the fact that Japan has technology that far outstrips the Empire's. Even when Japan caused serious damage to them, they still assumed that Japan possessed the same technology as them, such as large-caliber naval guns and torpedoes (just a little more in performance), think weapons like anti-ship guided missiles are an exaggeration, resulting in them not being ready to deal with them effectively. However, continuous loss against Japan, is making them rethink their mindset about Japan and start to think how to counter Japan advanced technology. Unfortunately for the Empire, this puts them in a position where they must catch up to their rivals, who are already 70 years ahead, and are continually advancing. Due to their status as a wartime nation, Gra Valkas rarely develop their own technology to increase the economy. Since it was assumed that Gra Valkas scientists and engineers are mainly at the military, they focused their development on the military rather than their own economic development. Advancement in civilian technology is put at a low priority. The advancement of Gra Valkas technology is a responsibility of Imperial Advanced Technology Research Institute. Recently, due to the possibility of the extreme threat of JSDF guided missile tech, the Advanced Technology Research Institute created the prototype radar jamming device to deal with the new threats. However, this new technology was based on the assumption that tactics against guided missiles were 100% effective and that guided missile technology had not advanced in response. In the end, the jammers failed in diverting the anti-ship missiles from reaching their targets. Military Gra Varkas military is an early-WW2 level as their electronic technology seems on the level of the United States, but with a design philosophy similar to Japan during WW2. Like all enemies of Japan, they believe heavily in overwhelming their enemies with a massive number instead of investing in developing advanced and high-quality military force. However, they do understand the concepts of modern warfare, as they were shocked when Japan took out their airplanes on the runway to prevent others from taking off, radar and communication stations before destroying their anti-aircraft batteries and military structures. Gra-Valkas armored force is based on medium tanks (similar in style and features to Type 97 Chi-ha tanks), supported by armored cars and scout motorcycles. The armored forces are often used as spearhead offensive forces aimed at enemy key positions. However, it seems that such equipment is limited to some elite units (eg 4th Armored Division), hinted that the rest of the army consisted of mere infantry divisions, with little or no support of armored vehicles. Despite being a modern, mechanized army, the soldiers still engage in barbaric activities such as looting, rape and pillaging conquered territories. The officers even turn a blind eye to the atrocities. Gra Valkas Armed Forces, surprisingly, owns an artillery field that can range up to 30km, surpassing any stationary Field Artillery that are commonly reaches only up to 15km without rocket boost support (this was probably achieved by making large caliber guns). The artillery was once used to suppress Mu's Artillery defenses that owns only range up to 22km (WN), far surpassing even the modern technology without rocket support on the munitions. However, this comes with the downsides of being difficult to transport and they are ineffective against aerial assault. Furthermore, the Japanese Type 99 155 mm Self-Propelled Howitzer has the advantages of out-ranging Gra Valkas' artillery and being mobile. The air force is mostly composed of their mainstay fighter, the Antares, and is supplemented by twin-engine bombers and reconnaissance aircraft. Their main goals are to achieve air superiority, launch aerial assaults, bombardments and support the armored divisions.. Their navy is the most powerful force in the army, with about 800 - more than 1,000 warships of all kinds, from high-speed destroyers to giant battleships and aircraft carriers. Gra-Valkas pursued a doctrine that looked like Japan during World War 2: whereby submarines and aircraft would attack and wear out enemy fleets before battleships and heavy cruisers arrived and completely destroy the enemy in a "decisive battle". However, there are some differences: Gra-Valkas considers submarines to be a support force, but when needed, they can also separate combat independently. As for their submarines, they are armed with unguided torpedoes with an effective range of 5-25 km. However, since they are unguided, they are normally fired in a spread pattern in order to increase the chances of hitting and sinking the target. As a result, the Gra Valkas fleet is under the impression that a submarine can be located by using the trajectory of incoming torpedoes. However, this concept cannot find Japanese submarines with their guided torpedoes. The size of the Gra-Valkas army, especially the navy, has amazed even advanced nations like Japan, arguing that their overwhelming numbers - 10 to 1 ratio - can cause difficulties and threats to JSDF. The Japan Prime Minister even had to assess the threat from Gra-Valkas as "the first comprehensive military crisis since Japan transfer to the New World" (WN). In terms of tactical thinking and strategy, the Gra-Valkas military are still in the mindset that the brute force is needed and that the victor would be decided by whoever has the most guns. As a result, they are slow to comprehend that being able to strike from beyond visual range is a huge advantage, thereby making their concept of ship-to-ship combat as obsolete. For example, Caeser had erroneously believed that since Japan's military forces are much fewer in number compared to his forces, he had planned to split his fleet into smaller battle groups. While Japan focused all of its forces on one group, the other groups would decimate Japan. This tactic might have worked during World War 2, but with the invention of beyond visual range capability and missile technology, Japan does not need to send all of its forces to deal with a single battle group. A few missile-destroyers, submarines or a flight of aircraft armed with long-range anti-ship missiles and guided torpedoes have proven sufficient to deal with larger threats. Economy Neither the LN and WN versions mention much of the Gra-Valkas economy or its characteristics. However, based on Gra-Valkas possessing a huge army and being able to conduct operations on different fronts, it can be seen as very powerful and effective. After deciding to declare war on the whole world, Gra-Valkas directed the mass production of warships to supply the fleet, showing that their industrial-scale was very large and powerful, can be surpass the mighty powers in the New World like the Mu or the Holy Mirishial Empire, even shocking an entire modern industrialized nation like Japan, when Japanese government officials commented that Gra-Valkas' shipbuilding speed could exceed the maximum capacity of their naval shipyards. However, their economic growth remains stagnant due to their status as a wartime nation, the development of their homeland was considerably slow as they mostly put their budget into military campaigns rather than economic development itself. Should the Gra Valkas Empire fail in the invasion of Japan, the Empire could fall into an economic crisis for the first time ever since the Empire was built. The current invasion on Japan alone was worth around almost 2 Trillion Yen, combining the price of Destroyers, Aircraft Carriers, and Cruisers altogether alone excluding Aircraft in World War II's prices or around 37 Trillion Yen, adjusted for inflation rate from Early World War II to present. Should it was included in military operations, fuel, arsenals, etc, the cost of the military campaign to Japan alone may rise up more than twice the total price of the Great Fleet warships. Politics Gra Valkas practices imperialism and expansionism like the Parpaldians and some superpowers in the new world. Being a top power in their old world and managing to dominate several countries in the new world, making the Gra Valkas extremely arrogant and condescending to the point that they hastily declare world domination in the new world with little consideration or thought of the consequences. In terms of general diplomacy, their methods are straightforward and brutish. Either submit to their rule or be destroyed. At this point, the Gra Valkas Empire has little to no allies except the Rheem Kingdom who aims to backstab Japan just like how they backstab Papardia Empire and some who fear of Gra Valkas. As a consequence, their economy did not flourish well as they are focusing on war rather than developing their own economy due to their status as a war nation. Gra Valkas has a brutal and uncompromising policy in situations where the members of the Royal family are harmed in any ways by nations, they deem as hostile. Beside bringing destruction to any countries that responsible for the death of any members of the Royal family, if any royal members are held hostage by a hostile nation, the Gra Valkas will issue warning to that nation to release them or face destruction. If the hostile country refuse or threat to kill the royal family member, the Gra Valkas will send their fleets to destroy that country either ways. This show that the Gra Valkas never negotiate with their enemies and even deems that the Royal family members are somewhat expandable for the sake of conquest and fear mongering tactic of the Empire. Furthermore, by threatening a country with desolation, the Gra Valkas expects that the countries who holds the royal members hostaged are more likely to release the hostages rather than risking their countries to suffer decimation. Foreign Relations Japan Like all Empires, Gra Valkas looks down on Japan because of the small size of the JSDF and Japan's pacifist nature, despite having little to no information about Japan's military capability, making the same mistake like the Parpaldians. Furthermore, despite being shown the superior technology of Japan through the video about WW2 by Japan diplomats, the Gra Valkas smears at Japan as they think they're bluffing to them and regards their advanced technology as pure propaganda. However, after their failed invasion on Mu, the Gra Valkas begin to take the Japanese seriously and realize that the Japanese are the only thing that stands in their way of world domination. They assembled their entire navy force to attack Japan. During the attack on Japan, it is shown that the Gra Valkas Navy willing to sacrifice a portion of their fleet to distract Japan to make sure their attack on Tokyo goes smoothly, showing that unlike Japan's past enemies, Gra Valkas is far more pragmatic and be able to learn from their mistakes faster. However, due to their indoctrination and pride, their core mistakes remain the same as they believe numbers can overwhelm even countries with high technology. Mu They declared war on all the Second Civilized nations including Mu itself. According to Dallas, their technology and civilization was around 20 to 30 years behind Gra Valkas Empire. Holy Milishial Empire At first, they see the Holy Milishial Empire as the greatest threat to their conquest after one of their fleets was decimated by the Ravernal Flying Battleships. However, because Emperor Gralux argued that HME's technological nature is ineffective and lacks the ability to develop sustainably, plus losing a vast amount of military assets in the failed invasion of Mu, they changed their minds and regarded Japan as the greatest threat. Triva * The names of the Gra-Valkas Empire characters / weapons are named after the celestial objects in the universe. For example, the Antares fighter is named after the star Antares, the brightest star in the constellation Scorpius, 520 light-years from Earth. * For some unknown reason, the Gra-Valkas Empire's weapons were quite similar in appearance and specifications to Japanese weapons during World War 2, with some slight differences, suggesting that there is some connection between Japan and Gra-Valkas in the past. Notes Category:Locations Category:Countries Category:Transferred Countries Category:Superpowers